15 



There is even a legend of another " last " AVolf near Port of 

 Menteith (Forth), of which I have some account. 



The claim of Rannoch as haWng held the last British Wolf is 

 upheld by the author of an excellent local volume lately issued.^ 

 The author gives the cii'cumstances of its death minutely ; and he 

 argues quite in favour of the fact against the claim of Sir Ewen 

 Cameron of the year 1680, claiming the later Rannoch date of 1710. 



The following items are taken from the BJad: Bo<jk of Tay- 

 mouih : — 



1594 — Item in the Rent-Rolls — Discharge — "Of great mearis 

 slane be the wolf, iiij. ; item — of yeir auld horses slane be the 

 wolf, i." 



1621 — "To save * * * devastation every tenant was obliged to 

 make four 'cusats of iron'- (probably some sort of dog-spear) for 

 slaying of the wolf, that great enemy of the shepherd.'' (The 

 "Wolf) "was not finally extirpated till the end of the (seventeenth) 

 century."' 



1622 — " Johnne Dow MTnstalker pursues in coui-t Patrick M'Xab 

 of Swy, &c., <^'c., for tyning of three kye quhilks were slane be the 

 wolf." 



Canis vulpes. L. Fox. 



As far back as our statistics take us, the Fox was an abundant species, 

 and at the time of the earlier records is stated to have given full 

 work to a pack of hounds in Forfarshire and another over the range 

 in Aberdeenshire. This appears to have been prior to 1793 {Agric. 

 Surrey of Kincardineshire, etc.). And at these earlier times Eeynard 

 does not appear to have been blamed nearly so much as in later years 

 for depredations among lambs and flocks and in the poultry yards. 

 The writer of this account considered that Foxes' principal food con- 

 sisted of hares, of which, he adds, " there were incredible numbers.'" 

 Eeynard also got credit for a liking for an occasional fish diet, or 

 sheU-fish diet, as he was often found prowling about within sea-mark 

 {loc. cU., pp. 394-6). 



The old Statistical Account speaks of "two kinds,'' and to this 

 belief we have before referred in previous volumes of this series 

 (cf. vol. ix., A Vertehrate Fauna of Xorth-JVest Highlands and Skye, 



1 SchiehcUtion, by the Rev. .John Sinclair, M.D.. B.D., Parish Minister of Kinloch 

 Rannoch (Stirling: Eneas Mackay, 190.5, q.r., pp. 39-43i. 



- I cannot find this word in the English Dialect Dirtionary, nor do I find it in 

 Januesons Dictionary of the Scottish Language. 



